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Dear Giardiasis

“How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.”

Dear Giardiasis,

You dreadful Protozoa you, I had really hoped to avoid encountering you first hand, but I guess you had other plans. I have heard you cause traveler diarrhea for many, and have affected over 30 percent of the world at some point or another. You nasty microscopic inconvenience you, you are even the most common water-borne illness in the USA. I had always hoped you would just remain a distant statistic in my mind, but I guess, my time to dance with you has come at last.

After over a week of cramping, diarrhea, and a very bloated stomach, I am finally ready to fight back. Nepal is well supplied with antibiotics, which, without a prescription, you can purchase for less than fifty cents. I have heard you can last months without treatment, and even weeks with meds, but I am pleading you to go, now, so I am free at last.

Oh dear giardia, our time is finished now. You are a nuisance to my bowls, and a trial to my patience. It is time for you to go, so we can trek in peace.

Luckily, though I may have had it too, it’s Kevin who got the brunt end of whatever stomach problem we have been combatting since Kathmandu. Though we don’t actually know what it is (you need a stool test, three of them actually, to confirm giardiasis), I have done a diagnosis based on symptoms and the fact that it is very prevalent here. Like I mentioned before, antibiotics are abundant, and for twenty-five cents I was able to purchase the pills that should eradicate the Protozoa if indeed it is giardia. Unfortunately for the past week we have been stuck waiting for Kevin to get better, a week which has left us slightly stir crazy to say the least. Thankfully, after many games of iPad chess and bowling, Kevin is now feeling back to normal so we can (finally) head out on our trek tomorrow. We are just praying it doesn’t come back!